Familiar Strangers
by Firebird9
Summary: “And now Nick’s a smalltown sheriff and you’re, what? A parttime mechanic? A wife and mother?”. After 10 years, Grissom catches up with some familiar strangers. NS


**Familiar Strangers**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own CSI. If I did, I'd be able to afford a proper holiday in Mexico, instead of earning a pittance teaching English.

**Rating:** K+

Her eyes met his over the corpse. Just another dead body, just another life cut short. Her eyes met his and she answered his unspoken question before she was even aware she was going to speak.

"I can't do this anymore."

Nick and Sara left Vegas the next day. To hell with their jobs, to hell with the lab, to hell with their case-loads. To hell with everything except somehow holding onto the sanity they were both suddenly aware they were about to lose.

When they left they were friends who had never even kissed. With two months, they were married.

**Ten years later…**

"Can I help you hon?"

Gil Grissom looked at the waitress and remembered to smile. He was hungry, and this seemed to be the only diner in town. And besides, he needed her help.

"Can I get a coffee and a BLT please. And perhaps you can tell me something. I'm looking for someone I used to know, a Sara Sidle. Do you know her?"

"Sara Sidle?" The waitress frowned in concentration. "Well now, I don't believe there's ever been anybody around here by that name. You sure this is the right place?"

Grissom shrugged. "What about Nick Stokes?"

"The Sheriff? Why, sure. He was in here just this morning. And, say now, his wife's called Sara. Could be she's the lady you're looking for?"

Grissom's heart jumped. For nine years he had resisted the urge to visit his former CSIs, in spite of the invitation that was issued unfailingly in every happy Christmas card. But with his retirement looming it had suddenly become imperative that he see them again. He knew of course – how could he not, with those damn Christmas cards as an annual reminder – that they were married now, but the logical outcome of this had somehow escaped him. Sara Sidle, his Sara Sidle, had ceased to exist that fall day when she had married Nicholas Stokes, and in her place was another woman. Mrs. Sara Stokes.

He realized he had been silent too long. The kindly waitress was starting to look concerned.

"Yes," he replied absently, "that would be her."

"Well then. The Stokes place is up on the hill, maybe a fifteen-minute driver from here. You can't miss it. But it's not much good going up there now. Whole family'll be at work or school."

"Whole family…" He knew about that from the cards as well, the four children he had never met but whose photos he had stared at for hours, amazed at the blend of his features and hers in their faces. Familiar strangers.

"Why, sure. Except for the little ones, of course. Cassie Marlin looks after them mornings." The waitress was frowning again. "You okay, mister?"

"Fine, just fine. Tell me, where does Mrs. Stokes work these days?"

"Okay Hank, turn her over."

The voice was at once strange and achingly familiar. The accent had changed in some indefinable way, the 'a' in 'Hank' lengthening slightly as though the speaker no longer felt any need to hurry over the name, but there was no mistaking the identity of the person who was speaking from under the hood of the beat-up pickup in the mechanic's workshop. The owner of the pair of male legs sticking out from the cab had obviously heard, because the truck choked, spluttered, stuttered and then finally began to purr.

"Well I never. I don't believe there's an engine yet that you ain't managed to fix."

Two hands reached for the hood and slammed it down, revealing a woman's grinning face.

"That's because I'm the best, baby."

At the sight of her face, Grissom's heart contracted painfully.

"Sara?"

Her smile froze, faded, and finally changed to an expression of disbelief.

"Grissom?"

The sound of the engine cut off and the owner of the legs unfolded himself from the cab, revealing a young man of perhaps twenty, with a good-natured face but built like a bull. He looked at the newcomer, then at Sara.

"You know this guy?"

Her eyes never leaving Grissom's, Sara nodded.

"Yeah. We worked together. A long time ago." She shook herself. "Listen, Hank, why don't you take an early lunch? I'll see you tomorrow."

Hank nodded slowly, and eyed Grissom suspiciously as he left. Sara ignored him, her attention fixed on her former boss.

"So…?"

"So." Grissom shrugged. He wasn't certain what he had expected. For her to fling herself sobbing on his neck perhaps, or else to coldly ask him to leave. Instead she seemed almost neutral, and somewhat ill at ease. He tried again.

"So, new job?" He indicated the shed with his hand, and she shrugged.

"Not really new, but yeah. Part-time, mornings. You know, because of the kids?" She looked around and smiled. "Must be almost eight years now. I started after Rose was born."

"Strange place for a physics major."

"No stranger than elbow-deep in corpses. And making things work again is a lot more fun than taking them apart."

Abruptly, she gestured towards the back of the workshop.

"Coffee?"

He nodded. "Thank you."

She filled two cracked mugs from a stained coffee-maker and handed him one with a slight grimace. "Not exactly Greg's Hawaiian Blue."

"You remember that?" He was surprised.

"I remember a lot of things," she remarked, settling back against a bench. "It wasn't all bad. But we had to leave, both of us."

"And now Nick's a small-town sheriff and you're, what? A part-time mechanic? A wife and mother?"

She grinned at the implied question.

"You'll get to meet the kids later. I'm due to pick up the little ones in about an hour. That's Abby and-"

"Jenny." He finished for her. "I remember. You know, from your letters. Abby's what, four? And Jenny must be about eighteen months now."

She smiled, pleased that he had remembered such details.

"Right. And the elder two are Rose and JJ – Nicholas James Stokes Junior. He's just turned seven, and Rose is nine." Then she changed the subject. "You're staying with us, of course?"

He hesitated, reflecting that it was hardly fair of him to expect that when he had turned up without warning.

"Or at a motel. I don't want to be a bother."

She shrugged again.

"No bother. The house is big enough for one more, and Nick will want to see you."

Sheriff Nick Stokes pulled up outside his house and grinned as three children and two dogs descended on him.

"Daddy!" He scooped the youngest of the three, Abby, up into his arms and hugged her.

"Hey baby. Were you a good girl today?"

The child nodded solemnly. "Yes."

"Good." He ruffled the hair of the grinning boy. "What about you, tiger? Get up on the school roof again?"

"Nope. 'Cause mom said if I do and I break my neck then the hospital bill comes out of my allowance for the rest of my life." Nick winced.

"Man, that's tough. You better listen to her, huh? And what about you, Rosie-posy?" This to his eldest. "How was the English test?"

Rose shrugged. "It was okay. Mom has a visitor. A Mr. Grissom."

As his wife's had earlier, Nick's face froze.

"Grissom?" he repeated. "Grissom's here?"

Gil Grissom was seated at the kitchen table with Sara, Jenny, and two of their three cats. Any doubts Nick had had about what might have passed between the two of them were washed away as Sara rose with a smile and greeted him with a kiss, as she had done almost every day of their married life.

"Nick honey, look who's here." Her arm still around her husband's waist, she turned back to Grissom. "I asked him to stay with us, I hope that's okay?"

Nick smiled, then grinned.

"Yeah, that's just fine darlin'." He stepped away from her and towards Grissom, clasping his shoulder in greeting, all hesitation lost. Gil was surprised to notice a scar across the back of his right hand. It looked old, but before he could ask about it, Nick began to speak. "Grissom. Man, it's good to see you. It's been a long time."

Sara eats meat now. It's one of the first things Grissom notices at dinner. But the soothing magic of their new home has washed away the nightmare images, and Sara can now prepare and eat meat without dead and decomposing pigs flashing before her eyes. A couple of years ago a fox got into the henhouse, and Sara's first thought when she went out to see the damage was 'how am I going to deal with this?' And the second was this: 'Oh. It's just chickens.' And Sara realized that another wound had healed without her noticing it.

The kids chatter away as Grissom fills in the blanks in Nick and Sara's story.

When they drove away from Las Vegas, neither of them had any idea where they were going, and their futures were a blank slate. They had chosen to head north more or less at random and had driven up to Canada because there seemed no particular reason to stop before then. The day they crossed the border was the day they kissed for the first time.

They were married by a rather surprised vicar in a small church they had passed one day. Two ladies who had only come in to arrange the flowers had acted as witnesses, and Sara still wrote to them sometimes.

After that they had headed south through New England as the fall colors were turning the trees into torches. They had wintered over in Vermont, working in a ski resort, before continuing south in the spring. When they realized they were headed for New York City they had turned inland again and, with Sara now visibly pregnant, they had landed up in a small town "about two hours drive from anywhere," Nick explained, that was in need of a new deputy sheriff. And that had been it. They had come home.


End file.
